


Snake Bound

by SlowTortoise



Series: Drarropoly 2020 [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Case Fic, Cover Art, Dark Arts, Dark Mark (Harry Potter), Drarropoly: A Drarry Game/Fest, Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, Jealousy, Kissing, M/M, Making Out, Misunderstandings, Possessive Behavior, Prompt Fill, Unspeakables (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:35:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27919858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlowTortoise/pseuds/SlowTortoise
Summary: An Unspeakable joins Draco and Harry in their investigations into a series of personality thefts, rendering their victims with permanent defects to their character.However, the Auror pair has a secret to hide. They've been in a relationship for a few months and now this Unspeakable is getting in the way.Misunderstandings ensue as Harry's patience is tested!
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: Drarropoly 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029642
Comments: 7
Kudos: 74
Collections: Drarropoly '20: Founders Edition





	Snake Bound

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second submission for Drarropoly 2020 and my prompt was 'Jealous much? Character C keeps inserting themself into the equation and Harry or Draco does not like C's proximity to the other.'
> 
> Biggest thank you to [fwooshy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fwooshy) for betaing this fic and teaching me how to write POVs!
> 
> [Game of Drarry](https://gameofdrarry.tumblr.com/)

“Unspeakable Noah will be joining your investigation from today onwards.” Robards rested his chin on steepled fingers above his walnut desk as he addressed Harry and Draco with an expression that brokered no argument. 

Yet Harry wouldn’t be Harry if he didn’t try, so he opened his mouth to do just that. “Sir-“

Robards held up a hand to silence Harry. “You need someone who has Ministry approved training in the Dark Arts to help you with this.” 

Draco fought the urge to roll his eyes and instead glanced over at Harry who had narrowed his eyes in displeasure. As aurors, Harry and Draco were expected to attain a set standard of knowledge in the Dark Arts. However Draco knew more than that. A lot more. He had been raised breathing the Dark Arts and had lived in the company of the Dark Lord himself. But of course, the ministry could not trust Draco’s information as it was not something they themselves could regulate. So instead they were saddled with this unknown Unspeakable who probably learnt the vanilla version of the Dark Arts. 

“I will be expecting reports from the both of you and Unspeakable Noah, so don’t try to freeze him out of the investigation.” He fixed them with a stern expression. “Have I made myself clear?”

There was such a finality in the man’s voice that the pair could only reluctantly agree before escaping from Robard’s office. 

* * *

Harry and Draco had been secretly dating for a couple of months now and their shared office had become a space where the two of them could relax without someone at their respective homes walking in on them or friends popping around. They had a ward set up in front of their office to warn them of approaching colleagues and the room was littered with gifts they had bought for each other. 

It was in this office that Harry and Draco found themselves back in, both perched on Harry’s mahogany desk with their legs hanging off the side and fingers intertwined between them. 

“He’s going to be a complete wanker,” Harry groaned, rubbing his free hand against his face. “Prancing around like he knows more than you when we don’t need him at all.” 

“Mmmm,” Draco gave a noncommittal reply. It wasn't like Draco disagreed with Harry. In fact he thought this Unspeakable Noah was going to be an utter tosser but Draco wasn't proud about how he’d gained his knowledge of the Dark Arts either. At least Unspeakable Noah's hands were clean of guilt. 

Harry took one glance at Draco and frowned. “Stop thinking so hard. We’ll prove that you’re all we need.” He nudged playfully against Draco’s shoulders with his own. “It doesn’t matter how you know what you know. That’s in the past. Just show that you use it for good now.” Harry shot Draco a quick smile and leaned in to give him a soft kiss. 

Draco kissed Harry back and smiled against his lips. A familiar hissing sound had both of them glancing down at their intertwined fingers, where they could now see the inky outline of the Dark Mark’s snake, curling around Harry’s arm, its tongue forking out and kissing against Harry’s arm. 

“Are you ever going to tell me what he’s saying to you?” Draco asked, bemused. 

“Not yet,” Harry grinned. “It’s still our little secret, isn’t it, buddy?” He reached down and stroked the snake’s head. It seemed to preen at Harry’s words and swayed contentedly from side to side. 

At that moment they both felt their ward shimmer just outside their door. They sprung apart and were behind their respective desks by the time a knock rapped against their office door. The snake was once again an inanimate mark against Draco’s pale skin. 

Without waiting for an invitation to enter, the door swung open, and in walked a tall man with mousy blond hair, slicked back so the ends brushed against the collar of his navy-blue wool blend suit. 

“Unspeakable Noah,” the Unspeakable said by way of introduction. “Head Auror Robards will have told you all about me I’m sure, so we can get straight into the case discussions.” He plastered a fake smile and kicked the door shut behind him. 

Draco hated him immediately. 

* * *

“So, people are getting parts of their personalities erased for good?” Unspeakable Noah sat back in Harry’s chair, his tie and top button undone with his elbows resting on the armrests, fingers steepled in front of his face. “Great, I already know what’s going on. There’s been cases in the past where people have tried to alter their partner’s personalities to suit their tastes.” 

He had Harry’s chair pulled up to the chalkboard with all case-relevant suspects and victims taped with key information on it. Harry was left to perch on his desk and forced himself not to roll his eyes at how short-sighted the Unspeakable was being, The man hadn’t even bothered to look at their notes on the board.

“We’ve got the MO, thus making it obvious that we need to focus on all of the victim’s partners.” Noah sat up in Harry’s chair and made a show of slamming his hand against the board. “If they don’t have partners then it must be their parents.” 

Unspeakable Noah looked like he was having a eureka moment. Draco, who was sitting across from him, looked like he was holding himself back from trying to smack some brain cells into the other man. 

“Unfortunately, you’re missing some key points,” Draco said through clenched teeth. “Many of the victims lack a partner as well as parents, and if you’d let me finish updating you, you’d know that we’ve already investigated the people around them and have found them to be unlikely suspects.” 

The Unspeakable lifted his nose in the air as if Draco’s admonition was unwarranted. “ _I_ have not investigated them,” he stated as if that explained everything. 

Draco seemed relaxed in his own chair, but his hands were clenched in his lap; the skin stretched across his knuckles were impossibly pale. “Even so, I insist that there are details you should be made aware of.” He explained himself before Unspeakable Noah could force them back on to his single-minded track.

“We’ve noticed that groups of victims have had shared acquaintances amongst them and that the parts of the personalities erased have usually been favourable parts and not one you’d want to erase in a partner like you’ve suggested.” Draco paused and crossed a leg over the other. “We have theorised therefore that suspects have actually been stealing favourable traits from people around them to make their own custom persons.” 

Unspeakable Noah actually paused to process this information and cocked his head in thought. “I will consider this.” He leaned his upper body weight onto his elbows now placed on his knees, coincidently closer to Draco and studied him closely. 

Draco glanced over at Harry and they shared a look of exasperation. At the very least, the man finally seemed willing to listen to what they had to say. 

But Harry’s heart twinged with annoyance at the encounter. Making him want to shove the man’s face away from Draco’s personal space. 

* * *

The next few days saw Unspeakable Noah redecorate and rearrange the office space to suit his needs without consulting them. 

The man would steal the Portugeuse egg tarts that Draco would make for Harry every Wednesday, and he’d drink his tea in the mugs that Draco would purchase for Harry when he went on day trips with his mother. 

Worst of all, he was stealing all of Draco’s time during work and making him stay overtime to ‘discuss the finer details of the case’. Harry had been dismissed as he ‘wouldn’t be able to add anything new to the case’. _How rude! Wasn’t the man more interested in his own thoughts? Why the sudden change?_

Harry was positively peeved by the end of the week and had actually been missing his little secret office escapades with Draco, that normally involved a whole lot of skin against skin and mouths against the other. 

* * *

One particularly grey day saw Draco and Unspeakable Noah in the break room discussing Draco’s background on the case, a cup of tea in each of their hands. 

“I went to a coming of age party for one of the Carrow girls when I was a child. Her mother had presented her with a case full of vials holding different personality traits.” Draco took a slow sip of his tea. “Then they wheeled in a life-sized doll and all the guests watched as she drew out the qualities she liked from the vials and infused them into the doll. With each new trait infused, the doll grew more life-like in both mannerisms and appearance.” 

“That is quite the birthday gift.” Unspeakable Noah drifted closer towards Draco as his interest in the story grew. 

“Hmmm, I rather think the gift was the ability to play God. The great families have always loved power and they had the ultimate power over their dolls.” Draco’s eyes glazed over as he remembered the look of pure delight on the Carrow girl’s face. 

“The thing about the dolls though," Draco continued, "Is that they don’t learn and grow like humans. Which meant that while the Carrow girl was growing up and changing, her doll stayed the same. Eventually she learnt to extract the traits she wanted by herself from others and customised the doll as she saw fit.” 

Draco glanced up as he snapped out of his memory, to find Unspeakable Noah’s face closer to his than was necessarily comfortable and saw how his eyes seemed glazed over as if enraptured by the temptation of such power. Draco frowned and felt his snake shift under his shirtsleeves. He slapped a hand over the area the Dark Mark rested in an attempt to stop it moving. 

It was at this point that Harry walked in with his eyes wide. Unspeakable Noah’s face was far too close to Draco’s and his movement towards the Dark Mark had Harry’s gaze darting to it. Draco watched Harry narrow his eyes at the hand clasped over his Dark Mark before he suddenly strode over. 

“If you’ll excuse us. Important work-related business to talk about.” Harry gritted out as he grabbed Draco by the wrist and rushed them both back to their office. 

* * *

When they were both inside their office, Harry pinned Draco against the door by his wrists with one hand and the other curled possessively around Draco’s sharp hips. “Mine” he growled out as he pushed his groin into Draco’s. 

Draco gasped against the friction and Harry swallowed the sound in a kiss that had Draco weak at the knees. He loved seeing Harry so possessive over him--it revealed how much he wanted Draco--but he was confused at what had brought this on. “Yours?” Draco gasped out when Harry had finally freed his lips. 

“Our snake only moves for me,” Harry said as he suckled blossoming marks against Draco’s neck. “You asked what it says to me.” Harry pulled away from Draco’s neck to pin Draco’s eyes with his own. “It whispers your inner most desires to me. And it has only ever wanted me.” 

Draco understood now. Harry had thought that the snake had come alive for Unspeakable Noah in much the same way but oh how wrong he was. He had felt hostility coming from the snake, not desire. Draco had clamped down on the mark to stop the snake from attacking the Unspeakable. It wasn’t desire at all. It was disgust. 

Draco pushed back against Harry until Harry had slammed against the new whiteboard Unspeakable Noah had bought to replace their old chalkboard, citing that new technological advances had to be followed. The board clattered to the ground and was left forgotten as Draco freed his arms and intertwined his fingers with Harry’s. The snake on his left arm came alive and curled around their forearms, tying them together. 

“I’ve only ever been yours. And I will always be yours. Just as you are mine.” Draco whispered as he pressed his forehead against Harry. He watched as the uncertainty drained from Harry’s eyes before he surged forward and claimed Harry’s lips. 

His hands tugged at the shirt tucked into Harry’s pants and slid his free hand under to feel the vast expense of skin and muscle he had become so familiar with. A shiver ran through Harry at Draco’s touch, Unspeakable Noah left completely forgotten. Harry waved a hand towards the door and they both heard the lock click shut. 


End file.
